Garments, particularly those produced from natural cotton, wool or linen fibers, often wrinkle badly when washed and require considerable time and effort with an iron to restore them to satisfactory wrinkle-free appearance. In the last half-century, textile manufacturers have developed so called wash-and-wear garments with "permanent press" characteristics. Garments manufactured from these fabrics have considerably less tendency to wrinkle in the washing process and, as a result, the need to iron such garments has been significantly reduced. Nevertheless, there remain some wrinkling problems in wash-and-wear garments and these problems are more severe when the directions for care have not been followed. For example, a garment may tend to wrinkle when the wash water is too hot, when the garment is dried at an excessively high temperature or not removed immediately from the dryer. Under such circumstances, it is often necessary to do some touch-up ironing with a steam iron. Also, garments made from fibers containing all cotton or a high percentage of cotton (70% or more) continue to be manufactured since many wearers prefer such garments over those containing cross-linking resins or blends of cotton and synthetic fibers. Such garments are subject to wrinkling during the laundering process and therefore almost always require ironing. Ironing of garments is a tedious task and it is, of course, desirable to ease the effort to the extent possible. Most of the ironing aids heretofore available are in the form of spray starches or sizing products offered in conventional aerosol or trigger spray delivery systems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,057 discloses a spray-type sizing composition comprising a modified low viscosity starch and, to make the iron move smoothly during the ironing operation, a minor amount of dipropylene glycol is added. PCT Patent Publication No. WO91/19037 discloses the use of a silicone gel for ease of ironing and improvement in the appearance of ironed garments.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,806,254 is principally concerned with a wrinkle-removing spray composition comprising a low molecular weight alcohol, glycerine and a non-ionic surfactant, with the only essential ingredient being glycerine. There is a statement that use of the composition may make ironing easier but no indication that the composition can be introduced into the chamber of a steam iron.
The principal object of this invention to develop an ironing aid composition which, rather than being spayed onto garments, can be used in the steam chamber (well) of a steam iron.